Helsinki Cathedral (originally Nicholas Church, 1917–1959 Suurkirkko) is the main church of the Helsinki Cathedral Congregation and the Helsinki Diocese. The church designed by Carl Ludvig Engel is located on the edge of Senate Square in Kruununhaa. The cathedral, which looks white, but is actually painted in three different shades of light gray, with its apostle statues, is one of the most famous symbols of Helsinki. More than 500,000 people visit the church every year, about half of which are foreign tourists.
The cathedral is part of the empire center of Helsinki built in the 1820s–1850s. The town center plan was designed by Johan Albrecht Ehrenström, and the most important buildings were designed by Carl Ludvig Engel. In Ehrenström's site plan, the rock on the north side of Senate Square was reserved as the site of the Lutheran main church. Already in 1818, Engel drew up the first plans for the church and refined its architectural style for a decade.
On April 8, 1812, Emperor Alexander I signed an order making
Helsinki the capital of the Principality of Finland. In the same
year, "Old Finland", i.e. western Karelia, was again connected to
the rest of Finland. On that April 8, the emperor also confirmed the
site plan for the new capital. At that time, Helsinki was still a
small town, with 77 buildings, i.e. a third, destroyed in a fire in
the fall of 1808, and new houses had not yet been built to replace
the burned ones. There were only about 3,500 inhabitants.
According to this first site plan, the square in the old center was
to be expanded and a new Lutheran stone church was to be built next
to the group of rocks on its northern edge. However, it wasn't until
two years after the confirmation of the site plan that the emperor's
letter of instruction was published, which specifically stipulated
that a new Lutheran church and also a Greek Catholic church had to
be built in Helsinki. At the same time, on August 8, 1814, the
Emperor issued new regulations on customs duties on imported salt.
The emperor announced due to what v.t. the governor-general, Count
Armfelt, had submissively submitted that he had decided that 15% of
the money collected from the salt duty had to be handed over to a
fund to build two churches in the city of Helsinki, one Greek, the
other Lutheran. However, it took more than a decade and a half after
the church's founding words were announced before the construction
work started and almost 40 years before the church was inaugurated
and handed over to the congregation. It was not until 1818 that Carl
Ludvig Engel was given the task of designing the church.
The
construction costs of the cathedral were paid with a loan of 2.6
million rubles and a 37-year amortization period taken from the
Russian emperor Nicholas I, of which the share of the construction
costs of the cathedral can be estimated to have been around one
million rubles. The same loan was used to rebuild Turku after the
fire. Construction work on the cathedral began in 1830.
In
1840, the year of Engel's death, the church was so ready that the
university's 200th anniversary celebration could be held there in
the same year. After Engel's death, his assistant E. B. Lohrmann
continued to supervise the construction work, under whose leadership
significant changes were made to the exterior of the church. The
church was officially inaugurated only on February 15, 1852, when it
was named Nicholas Church after Emperor Nicholas I and St. Nicholas.
During the so-called Helsinki church riots in 1917, anarchists
led by Jean Boldt took over the church for the evening and night.
After Finland gained independence in 1917, the perceived Russian
name was changed to Suurkirka. When the Diocese of Helsinki was
founded in 1959, the Great Cathedral became the Helsinki Cathedral.
The church represents the neoclassical style and is in the shape of
an equal-armed Greek cross. The Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg has
been considered a model for the solution. Engel himself did not
particularly like central churches, but chose the type as his starting
point, because due to the location of the church, it would be viewed
from all sides. This way, the church building would be symmetrical when
viewed from all directions. Engel made numerous sketches of the church
and polished its style to be as smooth and reduced as possible.
In the final drawings approved by Emperor Alexander I, there are four
cross columns flanked by Corinthian columns, in the center of which
rises a round, domed tower. The church hall was traditionally oriented
east-west, with the altar placed in the direction of the sunrise, i.e.
at the east end. The main entrance was placed in Länsipääty and the main
stairs leading up to it from Unioninkatu. The pale and motionless church
hall was designed to be noticed at a glance, which was made possible by
its symmetrical shape. The church rises from its own stone platform,
which Engel placed the main guard on the side facing Senate Square.
Across from the door on the Unioninkatu side of the church, Engel
designed the main library building of the Imperial University in 1840.
Juho Könni, the third-generation watchmaker of the Ilmajoki Könnin
family, was a skilled watchmaker. His most notable work was the delivery
of machinery to the church. The mechanism was in use until 1902, when a
new electric clock was installed in place of the broken mechanism. The
original dials made by Juho Könni are still in use. The original
mechanism made by Könni's master is kept in the Finnish Watch Museum in
Espoo.
The plan underwent several changes during the construction
phase. By imperial order issued in 1839, the main guard was demolished
and replaced by a wide monumental staircase that descended from the
church platform to the square. Engel unsuccessfully objected to the
construction of the stairs, because the change affected the nature of
the square: Senate Square, previously closed on its northern edge, now
opened towards the church.
After Engel died and E. B. Lohrmann
continued his work, the church experienced more changes. The church's
structure was feared to be too weak, so under Lohrmann's leadership,
four corner towers were added to support the main tower, and twelve zinc
statues depicting the apostles were added to the roof, imitating St.
Isaac's Church in St. Petersburg. They are the largest unified
collection of zinc sculptures in the world. Since heavy church bells
were not dared to be placed in the dome of the church, Lohrmann also
designed side buildings on the sides of the stairs of the main facade,
one of which is a belfry, the other a chapel. These changes conflicted
with Engel's original plans and broke the pared-down appearance of the
church. The church hall better follows Engel's original architecture.
Twelve zinc statues depicting the apostles, sculpted by August Wredov and Hermann Schievelbein, were placed above the end triangles of the church, imitating St. Isaac's Church in St. Petersburg. Among these are the statues of Tuomaa, Pietar and Simon Kananeus on the west side of the church, on the side of Unioninkatu, of which the statue of Peter is in the middle above the main door of the church. On the south side, on the Senate Square side, are the statues of Bartholomew, John and Matthew. On the east side are the statues of Jacob the Younger, Paul and Jacob the Elder. On the north side are the statues of Filippus, Andreaa and Mattias. Sculpted by Schievelbein are Peter, Paul, Simon, Thomas and both Jacobs. Andrew, Matthew, Thaddeus, John, Philip and Bartholomew are carved by Wredow. The statues were cast in S. P. Deravanne's zinc foundry in Berlin between 1845 and 1847 and placed on the roof of the church in 1849. They are one of the largest unified collections of zinc sculptures in the world. They were restored in 1996–1998 during the renovation.
Tuomaa has a right angle in his hand.
Peter has two keys to the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Simon Seloot's badge is a saw.
Mattias has a
hatchet in his hand.
Andreas was crucified on a diagonal cross, which
is his symbol in church art.
Filippus has an open book in his hands.
Jaakob the elder's emblem is a walking stick decorated with a seashell.
Paul has a sword.
Jaakob the younger carries a club with a clubhead.
Matthew has writing instruments.
Johannes has a cup.
Bartholomeus
was flayed alive, which is why he has a knife in his hand.
The cathedral's white church hall in the shape of a short-pointed
isosceles cross is very reduced. Its only real decorations are three
statues placed in the corner recesses, which represent the reformers
Martti Luther, Philipp Melanchthon and Mikael Agricola. In the fourth
corner is a round pulpit designed by Engel with a golden canopy.
The statues of Luther and Melanchthon are enlarged plaster copies of the
Luther monument in Worms, completed in 1868, by the German sculptor
Ernst Rietschel. The enlargements made in Paris were brought to Helsinki
in 1886, and sculptor Karl Magnus von Wright designed stands for them.
Mikael Agricola's statue is made by the Finnish Ville Vallgren.
Enamored with the iconostases of Orthodox churches, Engel designed a
large altar structure for the church. It included a large gilded cross
surrounded by a golden halo and two praying angels; the cross and the
base of the altar would be decorated with Bible-themed paintings,
imitating the Orthodox style. After Engel's death, only the angels who
stand on the two sides of the current altar were realized from the plan.
The original altarpiece was Robert Wilhelm Ekman's Jesus Blessing the
Children, but Emperor Nicholas I did not like the painting and instead
donated a painting of Jesus from the Crucifixion by the Russian artist
T. K. von Neff. Ekman's altarpiece was placed in the Old Church.
The church's Marcussen & Søn organ, completed in 1967, has 57 voices.
The vault or crypt under the church was originally built as the
church's basement, where the church's heating equipment and wood storage
were located. The dirt floor church basement was empty for more than a
hundred years, until it was renovated for use in the 1970s. Today, the
crypt has exhibition spaces and a small cafe, Café Krypta.
The
cathedral was thoroughly restored between 1996 and 1999. The crypt was
further renovated during this repair phase. A new altar device and an
altar painting by artist Carolus Enckell were also purchased there, as
well as church textiles, which are the handiwork of textile artist
Päikki Priha.